OTARI AND TASCAM EIGHT-TRACK/HALF-INCH TRANSPORTS

AN EIGHT-TRACK/HALF-INCH CASE EXAMPLE

The Truck Mobile Recording Facility

Owned and Operated by Bruce Black

In equipping The Truck, Bruce Black chose equipment that offered, he says, a good compromise between cost and quality of performance. For his multitrack he uses an Otari MX-5050 MkIII-8, which he describes as "a marvelous, friendly machine," linked to a Biamp 1642 mixing console.

OTARI AND TASCAM EIGHT-TRACK/HALF-INCH TRANSPORTS

⤢ zoomThe MARK III/8 in a photograph set at a tilt: the desk-top cabinet with two large reels on the sloping transport, the eight-channel meter bridge above, the channel controls across the front panel, and a cabled remote unit in the foreground, its left end and lower half cut off by the crop.

Tascam Model 58 (left); Otari MX5050 Mark III/8 (right); and Fostex Model A8LR (below).

Both Otari and Tascam produce high-quality eight-track on half-inch tape machines for the increasing demo, personal-use, and production studio markets.

The Otari MX-5050-MKIII-8 is configured as a compact, tabletop console machine. A remote control unit, Model CB-110, provides total control of transport, monitoring, and record-mode functions, while the CB-116 autolocator provides single-button store and search of up to six cue locations, plus full "looping" capabilities. Nominal input and output levels to the MX-5050 can be set for +4 or −10 dB interface levels.